exists to create art which reflects the beauty and the glory of God, to use art to comfort and encourage people, and to inspire others to pursue the arts.
This has been a hectic couple of weeks. Among other things was a very difficult time trying to upload my video to YouTube. I’m glad that Adobe has such a good support team. I have spent many hours with them. LOL! Yesterday, I uploaded a YouTube short (about 45 seconds) to let people know that I was working on Part Two. It uploaded relatively quickly and successfully. A 45 second video only took two hours to upload. (!!!)
Last night, I started the upload of Part Two, again. It was still going when I got up this morning. But, it eventually got finished and successfully published. I think it took about nine hours. We are looking into getting faster internet… To see Part Two, please click on the thumbnail photo, below.
If you missed Part One: Supplies, please click here.
I must confess that it is difficult making videos while trying to make art. But, I think I will get the hang of it. I really need to work on talking. I tend to clam up or mumble while I am concentrating. LOL! So, how many of you are drawing along with me?
Art on!
Let what will be said or done, preserve your [composure] immovably, and to every obstacle, oppose patience, perseverance, and soothing language. — Thomas Jefferson
I have published a new video on YouTube. I must tell you all that in the first video, I announced a giveaway at the very end of the video. I will extend the giveaway until Tuesday, July 5, 2022, to give everyone a chance. Please watch my first video (or skip to the end) so that you can enter the giveaway and then watch my second video. Thanks!
P.S. With the first video, I was just learning and I used a free video editor on my phone. This time, I have Adobe Premiere Pro and I have been blowing my mind learning it, but it is worth it. I actually spent about eight hours working on this video on Saturday, then the computer froze and I lost it all. Well, I discovered that I didn’t actually lose it, but it was a journey around the interwebs before I found out that I could retrieve it. They say that lifelong learning is good for you … If it doesn’t kill you. LOL! Please let me know how you like it.
Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something. — Rainbow Rowell in Eleanor & Park
I have finally decided to pursue a YouTube channel. I have posted my first video.
You know, it is hard to learn some of these things. Editing a video has been a fiasco, thus far. I am learning, but it is an uphill battle. The most difficult thing, though, is hearing and seeing myself on video. LOL! Well, I have decided to grit my teeth and do it. My brother, Ray, told me, years ago, that I should be on YouTube. I told him, “No way! No. Never.” Will I ever learn to stop saying never?
So, I filmed myself drawing a horse. Please give it a look and let me know how it worked for you.
In the choice of a horse and a wife, a man must please himself, ignoring the opinion and advice of friends. — George John Whyte-Melville in Riding Recollections (1878)
This little pitcher came with our new home. I love to collect pitchers, especially little ones. I also love wooden spoons. So, I thought this would make a nifty little drawing. It is 10×12 on grey tinted pastel paper.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon.
-- Edward Lear
I am finished. This is oils on a 16×24 MDF panel. This last couple of weeks I just looked at him and mulled him over in my mind. I had to make up a new palette this afternoon, when I finally came to the place where I could work on him again.
The painting was done from a photo by Pierre Gonnord.
(This photo is not of a gypsy, it is of a friend from Ohio who wore my purple scarf for a photo shoot for me. I just thought she looked a little like a gypsy, so I used the photo here.)
Gypsies have no boundaries. They have primitive, untamed personalities and “that look in their eyes.” — Karl Wiggins
Here is the latest update on Gypsy Man. I am working on him when I can, but it seems that when I get to thinking of getting in there and slinging some paint, something comes up. I need to scrape my palette and mix some more paint. My piles of paint have dried out. That is a downside to not getting in there often enough.
He is looking more gypsy-like, I think.
I have finished my Goodreads 2022 Reading Challenge. This was my first one. I didn’t have any idea how many books I could read in a year, so I chose to commit to reading 50 books. Well, I have read 51 so far and am working on two more. If any of you are on Goodreads, please look me up:
Looking back on my list of books that I have read, it is quite funny how varied they are: The beloved Mitford books; Louis L’amour; art books; diet books; L. M. Montgomery; Peter Mayle; Willa Cather; and even Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Right now, I am in the process of reading a book called I’d Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life by Anne Bogel and The Art of Grace: On Moving Well Through Life by Sarah L. Kaufman. What are you reading right now?
Last night, we had a boomer of a thunder storm. After it was over, there was a beautiful light slanting across the kitchen. Mr. Beloved investigated and called me to look. What a lovely sight! I rushed for my camera and got a very unsatisfactory photo, but it was the best I could do:
I accidentally broke off a leaf from one of my African Violets a few weeks back. I stuck it in a glass of water just until I could pot it up properly so that I could propagate some new violets. I never got around to it, but I did keep it topped off with water. Well, after a little while, I noticed it was making roots. Very nice. After a little while more, I noticed a little leaf starting. I figured that if I didn’t get it out of there, soon, the leaf would just rot away. It has been about two weeks since I noticed the first little green leaf and this morning I noticed that it is a whole plant starting. Under water! It shows no sign of rotting. It has never been exposed to air. I think that is very nifty. I have GOT to get that thing properly planted! LOL!
Good news: Mr. Beloved has found a programming job. It is a contract to hire job, which is a new experience. But, after a year and a half, it is good to have the job. Publix has been good to him, but it is getting difficult doing so much of the physical labor of cleaning bathrooms, sweeping and mopping the entire store, collecting carts in the parking lot, etc. His new job is totally remote, from home, and he starts on the May 30. He is looking forward to the rest.
You can’t be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet. — Hal Borland
This is a gourd that we grew many years ago in our garden in Ohio. I grew quite a few and sold them at the farmer’s market or gave them away, but this one has been hanging around. At first, I wanted to paint it and make it a birdhouse. I have decided to leave it as it is. It is a very cooperative and beautiful model. The apples are Gala’s that I got from Publix. They were delicious, of course. Behind the gourd and apples is hanging a magnificent purple scarf that I received as a gift, one year, when I was working for NCR in Lake Mary, Florida, way back in the late 1980’s. It is such a beautiful scarf and such a lovely shade of purple that I use it quite often for photo shoots.
I am slowly working on my Gypsy Man oil painting.Last night, I was taking the trash out after it rained and saw this. I took a quickie with my phone. I wish it looked as wonderful as it really was…
I chose the following poem because I was thinking of purple. This poem is very purple to me and seems to go with my purple scarf.
I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
-- William Butler Yeats
Well, it is finished. I actually ended up using charcoal and white pastel on this, so, technically, it is a mixed media piece of graphite, white charcoal (which is not really charcoal), regular black charcoal, and white soft pastel. He is a 12×16 drawing on toned pastel paper, smooth side.
Below is the reference photo that I used. I hate sharing the reference, because people (including me) compare every detail. I am not a copy machine and I don’t want to be, but I find myself stressing over the small stuff. If I don’t look at the reference, I can like the drawing for what it is and not what it is not. But, I felt led to share it, because I could not get in touch with the photographer. So, the reference photo, below, was taken by Pierrie Gonnord. You can find an article about him, here.
Now, to work on that painting…
Gipsy man, O gipsy man,
In your yellow caravan,
Up and down the world you go —
Tell me all the things you know!
Sun and moon and stars are bright,
Summer's green and winter's white,
And I'm the gayest gipsy man
That rides inside a caravan.
-- Dorothy King
I am working on this painting that I am calling “Gypsy Man” for want of a better title. The photo was taken by Pierre Gonnord, a French photographer living in Spain. His photos reminded me of our own interactions with gypsies when we lived in Spain. One of these days I need to write a story about that. Well, I am working on a painting and a drawing at the same time. The painting is a little larger than life-size. The drawing a little smaller. I am really struggling with it. But, hey! Don’t I struggle with everything! LOL! Anyway, I just wanted you all to know that, yes, I am still working on art. Just very slowly.
The charcoal sketch on a 16×24 gessoed MDF panel. I tried to mix some burnt umber into the gesso and it was too dry to actually mix into it, so when I applied it, the burnt umber was in lumps and smeared onto the panel. LOL! It looks like woodgrain. Oh, well. It works. It will be covered with paint.
A half of a first paint layer. I loved the charcoal sketch so much that I was afraid to put the paint over it. It was hard. But, I think I will like it in the end.
I loved the charcoal sketch so much that I decided to work on a graphite portrait of the same man at the same time.
Slowly but surely. It helps me to have the eyes done quickly. I don’t know why. They are not completely done, but enough to make a difference.
I must confess that I am a little shy of showing my process. I am of the same feeling as Norman Rockwell. He said that he could never work with someone watching. Me, too! It just about locks me up. This last time that I was painting outdoors with people going by, I didn’t accomplish a thing.
Well, back to the ol’ drawing board…
I don’t think there’s any artist of any value who doesn’t doubt what they’re doing. — Francis Ford Coppola
Momma. Graphite and white charcoal on tinted paper. 12×16
Bedtime was eight and, as I lay there in the dark, I listened to Daddy play the guitar. Momma was in the kitchen. The boys were probably fast asleep after a day of perpetual movement. “Momma!” I yelled with sudden inspiration.
“Yes?” I heard her voice from the far reaches of our military housing in Germany. We lived in a nice apartment with army-issued furniture. The sound of her voice echoed slightly, but it was still a beautiful comfort to me. “Yes?”
“I want a drink of water!” I don’t remember ever asking for a drink of water when I was in bed, before. Maybe I just needed to see her face and hear her voice one more time before I went to sleep.
“Just a minute” she said from the kitchen.
When she did not immediately appear, I yelled again. Perhaps she heard a little note of fearful desperation in my voice. She came quickly and found me sitting wide-eyed in the bed. She stopped in the doorway and smiled. “A minute is when you slowly count to 60.” Then she returned to the kitchen.
I slowly counted and she was back with my water before I got to 60. I drank. She rubbed my back. I handed her the glass. She kissed me, hugged me, tucked me in, told me she loved me, and left.
I slept.
A mother’s arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them. — Victor Hugo
Virginia C. McCoy Fine Art 
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